A lack of transparency by Chinese officials – particularly on the new transmission of the coronavirus and the obstruction of a top American scientist from investigating it – was instrumental in the spread of COVID-19 outside of China, NIAID director Anthony Fauci tells Axios .
The big picture: Axios first spoke to Fauci this week a year ago about the “mysterious pneumonia” in Wuhan, China, which he suspected was a new coronavirus, but not so contagious, according to Chinese health officials.
- At the time, it was the lack of full appreciation for the seriousness of what we were dealing with [due to] for a number of reasons, ‘says Fauci. Some things were absolutely unknown to anyone. And some things were known to the Chinese and they weren’t very transparent about it, ‘he adds, citing their delayed reporting on person-to-person and asymptomatic transmission of the virus.
- Many people outside of China “were fooled,” he says, because they were unaware that the virus that caused the pandemic behaved differently from its cousin, SARS-CoV, where people infected with SARS show symptoms.
- Had China revealed its asymptomatic spread earlier, it would have “changed everything” for masking guidance, social distancing and contact tracking, he says.
China also refused to allow foreign scientists to put the virus on the ground “for a significant period of time,” limiting the ability to see how it was broadcast and trace its origin, he says.
- When they finally allowed an international group led by WHO, they still blocked some of those scientists, including one from NIAID, from traveling to Wuhan from Beijing.
- And this week, China delayed travel authorization for a group of international scientists led by WHO who planned to investigate the origin of the virus.
Looking back on the previous year, Fauci and other public health experts say some lessons have been learned …
1) Communication is key.
- “You don’t know everything you need to know the first day,” and as data accumulate, public health guidelines will evolve, Fauci says.
- Some public health experts say this process could have been explained more clearly to the public, especially when the guidelines changed.
- “The key here is not that we didn’t know what to do, but there were barriers that prevented that, whether they were political or otherwise,” said Tara Kirk Sell, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “The CDC has called this guideline Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication. It is scientifically based and works well, but we don’t [use] it.”
2) Misinformation and disinformation is hugely harmful.
- These were “incredibly powerful in this pandemic,” says Sell, adding that they can affect human health and national security. “We really need a national strategy to combat this.”
3) “Political division is a major hindrance to an adequate public health response, ”says Fauci.
- “You get people to make decisions about their own behavior based on political considerations, as opposed to an objective assessment of the threat to public health,” adds Fauci.
- “Public health has always been political, but it has never really been as biased as this time. Public health bias has been really unbelievably dangerous in this pandemic,” said Carlos del Rio, a leading professor of medicine at Emory University School of Medicine.
Scientific Advances in Vaccine Technology are the biggest bright spot this year, says Fauci.
- Developing and then administering a safe and effective vaccine in 11 months is “a monumental achievement. It’s just historical in its relationship,” says Fauci.
- Restoring trust in science is a priority and I hope the vaccines will do that.[cut: I think we need to continue to communicate what an incredible achievement that has been, and the fact that these vaccines did not come out of nowhere. Vaccines came from the years of research in mRNA technology and other things,]Sell adds.
It comes down to: The pandemic has shown thatt “The unimaginable can happen,” says Fauci. But he hopes “we’ll be very, very back to normal in a year.”